Suns of Silver, Waves of Pearl
by Saucery
Summary: In which Arthur is a pirate.


**SUNS OF SILVER, WAVES OF PEARL**

**- Chapter I -**

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><p>Merlin collapsed onto the deck, sodden and breathless as a drowned rat. A ring of pirates' boots surrounded him, filthy with rot and old gore - but the stench of brine was so thick upon him that he barely noticed their smell at all.<p>

"_This_ is a warlock?" boomed a great voice above him, and Merlin winced. He was well aware that he looked uncoordinated and stupid; he didn't need to be _told_ he looked uncoordinated and stupid.

"Glurgh," said Merlin, and coughed up more water.

"Up, boy," commanded the same great voice, which reminded Merlin of the giant, gleaming gong that announced lunchtimes at the seminary. It was a strange voice for a pirate to have - round and majestic and resounding. He'd expected all pirates to sound rusty and scurrilous, for some reason. For a very _good_ reason. They were _pirates_.

"Shall I string 'im up by the toes, Cap'n?" sniped another voice, meaner and thinner and _much_ more pirate-like, and Merlin quailed.

"No," said the captain, sounding amused. "Let the colt find his feet."

The _what_? The outrage of being compared to a baby _horse_ was enough to get Merlin to surge rebelliously to his feet, although it turned out to be more of a scrabble than a surge, given how slippery the deck was and how achy Merlin's lungs were. Confound it, how long had it been since he'd been able to _breathe_?

"Well, well. Spirited, are we?"

Merlin spat out a bit of hair and glared through his wet lashes - at - a chest.

A very _broad_ chest. Clad in dull, weather-worn leather that somehow failed to conceal the sheer musculature within.

Glaring at chests was generally unhelpful, so Merlin dragged his eyes upward, his throat getting progressively tighter as he noted the wide, cannon-like shoulders, the powerful neck and the _face_, dear gods, the face of a great golden bear.

A very handsome bear, admittedly. But the fine-trimmed beard, like the leather vest, did nothing to conceal the broad, square jaw that seemed as if it could crush Merlin's _bones_ to make its bread. Nor did it conceal the vicious, ribbed scar that ran _up_ that jaw, all the way to the left eyebrow, its progress marred only by an eye-patch. Merlin didn't want to know what that hidden eye looked like. As for the other, it was of a steely blue so intense that it seemed twice as sharp as normal, as if to compensate for its blinded twin. That lone, feral eye was fixed on Merlin, unerring as a cutlass, paring Merlin down to his very soul.

"Ulp," said Merlin. Which was embarrassing, but at least it was better than 'eep'.

"You cannot possibly be a warlock," said the bear, and Merlin jumped. "Why, you're but a scrawny child."

Merlin bristled, and against his own better instincts, found voice enough to snap: "I'm eighteen. _Not_ a child." He couldn't deny the scrawniness, though. Even the Great Dragon said he wasn't worth an afternoon snack.

"Oh?"

There was a peculiar singing in the air, and before Merlin had the time to blink, there was a blade at his throat.

"If you are not a 'child', then what are you doing, pretending to be a warlock in order to get onto my ship?"

"I'm not pretending," Merlin said, eventually, when his heart had stopped trying to jolt out of his chest. There was a _sword_ pressed to his _neck_. The cold edge of it felt perversely hot, as if it had been newly-smelted or dipped in flames, and Merlin was tempted to lift fingers to his throat, to see whether he was bleeding or not. But that would be an act of cowardice - of futility, at any rate, if he _was_ to die here - but he wouldn't die here, would he? Destiny had other things in mind. His visions had assured him of that. "You can check with your men," he continued, his voice firming. "They saw me working magic."

The captain studied him, his face momentarily bland - the blandness of surprise, perhaps, or just of reserved judgment. His sword didn't waver.

"'e's right, Cap'n," said the same ratty bastard who'd talked of hanging Merlin up by his toes. He sounded grudging, like a man forced to admit that having his teeth pulled felt good. Heavens knew all the pirates here _needed_ their teeth pulled. Except for the captain.

"Is that so, Belch?"

"That's so, sir. Brought us 'round in a hailstorm, 'e did. Jus' parted the waves and the thundery clouds, and lightning sang all up 'is body, skinny little thing tho' it is."

This time, the captain's eyebrows shot up. "You became a lightning rod?"

Merlin shuffled. "Um. Not my best moment. But I - "

"The longboat didna sink, tho' it should 'ave," Belch put in, eager now that he'd become wrapped up in the telling of the tale. Perhaps stories, as much as rum and gold, were a pirate's treasure. "All ten of us able-bodied men, as nothin' before the storm, but this wee lad pulled us ou' of it. Fainted soon after, tho', tipped right over the boat and into th' sea. We had to haul 'im out. Bled out his magic, seemed like." He ran a shrewd look from Merlin's head to his toes; Merlin shivered. "Still bled out, looks like. Or he'd 'ave sorcelled me for the insults."

"Like tempting fate, do you?" Merlin asked, defiantly, and Belch grinned with blackened teeth.

"Aye, lad. Where's the fun in life if yeh don't tempt fate? Fate tempts _me_ plenty; migh' as well make the little temptress my whore."

Before Merlin could decide whether that was insane gibberish or a startlingly enlightening system of philosophy, the captain spoke.

"You saved the lives of my crew," he said, slowly. His sword _still_ hadn't lowered, but there was a different expression on his face, now, a more contemplative one, that gave Merlin hope. "Why?"

"I had to," Merlin answered, simply. "I have to save the lives of those around me. That's what my magic is for. I can use it for nothing else; I swore that oath when I entered the seminary."

"Even if those lives be pirates' lives?"

"You are all children of the earth," said Merlin, "and magic is of the earth."

"And have you ever hurt another with your magic? Injured them, or killed them?"

"No!" Merlin was horrified. "Did you not _hear_ me? I can't - "

"There have been tales of warlocks," the captain said, "who _do_ kill."

"Then they are blasphemers," Merlin spat, "and their magic shall eat into them, burning them from the inside out until they are mere husks."

"You won't live long in this world, if you use your magic only for the good of others."

Merlin raised his chin defiantly. "I'll live as long as I'm destined to, the same as anyone else."

A sharp, hungry light flashed through the pirate captain's eyes. "You, boy-warlock, shall live as long as _I_ want you to." He jerked his chin towards his men. "Take him to my quarters. Put him in manacles - iron ones, so he won't magick his way out of them."

Well. Merlin wasn't planning to escape, anyway, for this was the end of his journey - this man was the sole reason Merlin had left the seminary, and the sole reason he had journeyed to the shipyards and, from there, saved a pirate-boat.

He'd dreamed of this. Dreamed - not of this precise _moment_, admittedly, or of how humiliating it would be to be reduced to a prisoner, and a - a_child_.

No. But he'd dreamed of this very ship, and of a crown, and of the name Pendragon.

Arthur Pendragon. The pirate known for his very _unusual_ brand of buccaneering - famous as much for its mercilessness as for its honor. He sailed under the dragon's crest, and none who stood against him prevailed.

Merlin did not know why his seer-dreams had led him here, to this man, but the truth was the truth, and Merlin was needed, here. The seminary cultivated young warlocks until such time as their destinies chose them; Merlin's had already chosen him.

"Take me, then," said Merlin, and held out his hands.

Captain Pendragon smiled - a strange, jagged smile, more like a shark's than a man's. "Oh, I shall."

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><p><strong>to be continued.<strong>  
>(Eventually.)<br>Please review!


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